Watching Halloween change over the years has been somewhat amusing, especially living in a small southern town most of my life… It seems everyone is competing for Halloween… Towns halls, churches, corn mazes, neighborhoods and even the local vet is having a dress up your pet night… Strange how things have changed… It seems Halloween has become big business over the years… Thankfully, Zombies have made a comeback after almost going extinct… And now we can at least be protected from them by all the Sexy Police, Firefighters, and French Maids on their way to party…
Zombies were “It” back in the day… I remember hanging out at a friend's house, who had the only VCR in the neighborhood… We watched the 1968 version of Night Of The Living Dead; then it was time for me to walk home. There’s just something about being a little kid and having to walk home down a long dirt road in the dark… My eyes were as big as cue balls combing the woods on each side of me… I just knew something was out there in the shadows… Not only did I have to lookout for the usual lunatics roaming the woods like Harry Hatchet, The Moss Lady, and The Root People, now I had Zombies wandering about, in black and white, no less, to contend with… I knew we were a long ways from Sleepy Hollow, but I was not ruling out the Headless Horseman from riding up behind me… After seeing him on Scooby Doo, I knew that cat was fo real… I would always walk cool and casual at first until something moved in the bushes beside me or a cricket jumped and landed on the back of my leg… Then my little hot bottom shoes were movin’ like the wind… I was out! Home in no time…
I can only remember one time seeing someone attempt to trick or treat in our neighborhood. It was my friend Brett and his mother… When my mother, The Penguin, opened the door and heard the words “trick or treat,” she kinda froze for a moment… “What?” she said confused. Then quickly replied, “Hold on, let me see what we got in here.” I knew right off, I was fixing to be embarrassed fo sho! They could have filmed an episode of Survivor in our pantry… It was always empty except for the echo… The Penguin came back and placed a cough drop and an apple in his basket. “There you go. Happy Halloween…”
No she didn’t… I thought as I turned back to eating my beans and rice…
As a kid, I did dressed up once as a Western Apache… I went to school and no one got it, especially the principal, who walked up to me in the lunch line and told me to take the bandanna off my head… She said, “We don’t have no hippies here at this school!” I tried to explain I was dressed as an Indian from out west for Halloween, and they did not wear feathers… This seem to infuriate her… Her dark eyes narrowed, “Take It Off!!!”
I say again, Halloween has changed over the years, for me it has definitely changed for the better…
